Milestones Early Learning Edgewater

🌟 Celebrating some very special milestones! 🌟

Yesterday, we celebrated two incredible achievements within our team — and we couldn’t be prouder! 💜

Recently, Miss Olivia completed her Diploma in Early Childhood Education and Care, and Miss Tenzin completed her Bachelor of Early Childhood Education and Care! 🎓✨

These are huge achievements that take plenty of hard work, dedication and commitment, and we are so proud to see both of them reach this milestone in their careers.

We are incredibly lucky and honoured to have Olivia and Tenzin as part of our team, sharing their knowledge, passion and love for early childhood with our children every day. 💕

Congratulations, ladies! You should both be incredibly proud of yourselves — we certainly are! 🎓👏💜

🇧🇹A Little Taste of Bhutan in Djiti Djiti! 🇧🇹

Our Djiti Djiti children continued their cultural exploration this week by getting hands on in the kitchen and making Bhutanese cookies!

Looking absolutely adorable in their wee blue hairnets, the children mixed, shaped and created together while learning that food can be a wonderful way to discover and celebrate different cultures and traditions. 👩‍🍳👨‍🍳

There were plenty of busy little hands, curious minds and, of course, lots of excitement about tasting their delicious creations! 😋

What a beautiful way to celebrate culture, connection, curiosity and community - one cookie at a time! 🌏💙

🔥🌏 Exploring Cultures in Djiti Djiti! 🌏🔥

This week, our Djiti Djiti children have been exploring the wonderful diversity of cultures within our studio through play, food and shared experiences. ❤️

The children worked together to create their very own make believe campfire, using their imaginations to create a space for gathering, sharing and connecting. We then enjoyed a very Aussie treat - fairy bread! 🌈🍞

Experiences like these provide opportunities for children to develop curiosity, respect and appreciation for the different cultures, traditions and experiences that make each of us unique. Most importantly, they remind us that there is so much we can learn from one another. 🌏💕

💛 WE’RE PAYING IT FORWARD! 💛

We are incredibly excited to share that thanks to the incredible generosity of our families and supporters, we have the wonderful opportunity to pay that generosity forward. 🙌

We have decided to use the funds raised to purchase a LifeVac to donate to another local community setting where children are present. ❤️

This is about so much more than a device. It is about raising awareness of choking prevention, supporting the incredible work of ZaZa’s Legacy, and extending the care and generosity of our Milestones community beyond our own centre.

Now we would love your help in finding the right place.

Do you know of a local café, sporting club, community group, play space, family venue or other setting where children regularly spend time that you believe could benefit from having a LifeVac?

👇 Comment below and let us know!

We are so proud of our Milestones Edgewater community and the way our families have embraced this initiative. We have seen such incredible generosity recently, including the amazing support for our RSPCA donation drive, and it reminds us every day how lucky we are to be surrounded by people who care.

We now have the chance to turn that generosity into something that reaches even further.

This is our community looking after our community. 💛

Thank you for helping us pay it forward. Together, we can help create safer spaces for children wherever they learn, play and grow.

📎 Paper Clips & Little Fingers! 📎

Our Wardong children explored fine motor development in a fun and creative way as they transformed colourful paper clips into hair for their cardboard faces.

Manipulating and attaching the paper clips required concentration, hand/eye coordination, finger strength, precision and bilateral coordination. Children were encouraged to experiment with how their fingers moved the clips, persist when the task became tricky and develop their own strategies for positioning them.

What looked like a simple creative experience provided a wonderful workout for the small muscles needed for future writing, drawing, cutting and self help skills. ✨

Most importantly, our Wardongs were encouraged to keep trying, problem solve and celebrate their efforts as they developed a new skill through hands on play.

Our Koolbardi children have been exploring a collection of open ended loose materials, including gumnuts, fabric pieces, large bottle caps and other interesting objects with different textures, shapes and weights.

Rather than having one set way to use the materials, the children were free to touch, hold, move, stack, transfer, compare and investigate them in their own ways. This type of open ended exploration encourages curiosity and allows our youngest learners to discover through their senses and at their own pace.

These simple materials provide opportunities to develop fine motor skills, hand/eye coordination, sensory awareness, problem solving, early mathematical thinking and concentration, while also encouraging children to make their own choices and explore cause and effect.

Sometimes the simplest resources create the biggest opportunities for little minds to wonder, “What can I do with this?” 🌱💛

✂️💇‍♀️ Snip, Snip… Salon Is Open! 💇‍♂️✂️

Our Wardong children have been busy getting creative with their very own paper people! First, they carefully drew faces onto their characters, thinking about facial features and where each feature belongs before adding colourful paper strips for hair.

Then came the best part… haircut time! ✂️ The children used scissors to trim, shape and style their paper hair however they chose, creating some very unique and fabulous hairstyles!

While it may look like a fun craft, there was plenty of important learning happening along the way. This experience supported fine motor strength, hand/eye coordination, pencil control, scissor skills, creativity, concentration and spatial awareness, while also encouraging children to make independent choices and express their ideas.

A little bit of creativity, a whole lot of snipping, and some very happy paper people!

A Face in Two Halves!

Our Wardong children explored symmetry, visual perception and self awareness through a unique self portrait experience. Each child was provided with a black and white photograph of half of their face and encouraged to carefully observe the visible facial features before drawing the missing side.

This experience encouraged children to look closely, notice shapes and positioning, develop spatial awareness and use controlled mark making as they transferred what they could see onto paper. ✏️

While symmetry is still a developing concept, the children demonstrated wonderful concentration, creativity and confidence as they explored their own unique features and represented themselves through drawing.

A simple portrait experience with lots of important learning happening behind the scenes! 🖤

Stack, Knock Down, Repeat!

Our little Koolbardi learners have been busy exploring stacking cups - and while it may look like simple play, there is so much learning happening in those little hands!

As our babies grasp, lift, place, stack and knock down the cups, they are strengthening their fine motor skills, hand/eye coordination, concentration and problem solving abilities. They are also beginning to explore early mathematical concepts such as size, order, balance and spatial awareness as they discover which cups fit together and how high they can build.

And, of course, knocking the tower down is half the fun! 😂 Watching it tumble gives our little learners an opportunity to explore cause and effect before starting all over again.

Simple resources, big learning, and plenty of opportunities for our Koolbardis to learn through hands on play! 🌱💜